ROVO – Mon

ROVO. Get familiar. Featuring electric violinist Yuji Katsui and guitarist Seiichi Yamamoto (of Boredoms), this group has built a rock solid career releasing consistently vibrant, energetic, forward-looking, impeccably arranged tribal/jazz/electronic/noise/funk/dance-fueled records. Yes, I just made a reductive chain of genre names. Read on to know why…

Mon is an unequivocal masterpiece. Currently in the center of ROVO‘s ever-expanding discography, this is, to me, their most representative album – an absolute highlight of effortlessly addictive yet experimentally-tinged instrumental groovy goodness. I truly hope you give it a listen. For your own sake.

For many people (like myself), discovering this band is that *aha!* moment when they realize there is, in fact, a group making the kind of music that resembles what they’d subconsciously love to hear. This is dream music in the most literal sense; it’s a perfect combination of previously-unrealized elements brought together in a cohesive, ambiguously, strikingly original sound. Still, there’s a warm familiarity bred of the intuitively catchy, effortlessly hypnotic beats. Even if it’s not horizon-expanding for you, this album has my guarantee as an invigorating wave of narcotic bliss. Jump in, the water’s warm. You’ll be back for more.

[this is a reasonably difficult album to track down, but I’ve found copies on amazon.jp (don’t worry, it can be read in english) and ROVO’s myspace has more info]

4 thoughts on “ROVO – Mon”

Hm well for me that would probably be a tie between Condor and Imago. Or the Sai ep, which is truly wonderful. I’ve got everything ROVO I could get my hands on, but am still missing a few japan-only releases (especially some live sets. though i do have Tonic 2001)